A Hundred Letters

Dearest

I cannot remember your face anymore.

I tried to put a face to the one who causes me immense amount of sorrow and pain. A state of being that I have come to hold close to my heart since it is the only state in which I am able to recover vestiges of you. ..

And when sorrow comes…in these fleeting moments I find myself lashing at little torn rags of laughter and words that once had comforted me beyond comprehension.

When I think of you, my mind carefully takes these bits and pieces out from a chest buried deep within the cage of my heart and lay them out lovingly. Slowly the light, in which I saw you and doted endlessly, has begun to fade. I can see lesser details of all these rags of memories I have kept of you.

The diffused warmth of the setting sun has slowly softened the sharp edges of your real features. I have to strain the vision of my perception to recognize you in the gradually dwindling light of your gradually dwindling presence. I don’t see so well anymore, but over the time my eyes have adjusted to this pale remnant of you.

I sometimes fear that the wind would blow the flickering candle light of my hopes and dreams…so I cup my palms around it protectively and pray this candle burns steady as the paint brush stirs darkness into the palette of twilight hues. So it glows softly and flickers often, but radiates such warmth that when I look at it, I feel hypnotized. The warm glow falling on the skin of the memories of you is mesmerizing and I have slowly and unknowingly fallen in love.

I have fallen in love with an image of you that I have created in this half-light which flickers every time I let my guard down. I no longer recognize you in the harsh light of reality. I can no longer relate to or access the reality that everyone sees in the presence of a loved one.

I have fallen in love with a shadow that I go chasing in delirium, as the lights of reality begin to fade.

I see your face but I refuse to believe that it is you in this fake burst of artificial illumination.

I see your face every day but I cannot remember your face anymore.

Project Holud Pakhi

Early Saturday morning of May, I stood against the window with my cup of strong black, admiring the summery splendor and thinking “Nothing could have been more captivating.”…..till our eyes met..

It was a Holud Pakhi (as famously known in Bangla. Literal translation being “yellow(Holud) bird (Pakhi)”)..Commonly known as an Oriole..a lovely bright yellow bird of the genus Sphecotheres. Order Passeriformes, Suborder Passeri.

There it was, on a sleek branch of the mango tree against the soft green iridescent young mango leaves, perfectly poised in the most beautiful composition I could have ever imagined. My hands automatically reached to where the camera would usually hang around my neck, but alas! My camera rested peacefully in the bedroom upstairs with its batteries on the charger and the memory card neatly inserted in its case. Yes Mr. Murphy, you proved your point.

To tear my eyes away from the magical yellow bird, its soft powdery yellow plumage was difficult. My brain attempted to prioritize between standing there and drinking down that divine sight or running as fast as I possibly could to retrieve my camera, stuff it with its necessary anatomical organs and run even faster downstairs (in spite of having been told to stop pretending that the stairs are a teleporting machine )

Needless to say, I ran…

The bird sweetly calling after me, probably singing “Ha ha ..you can’t catch me. Idiot optimistic you be.”

I prayed for some sort of divine intervention to make the bird stay..but of course ..all prayers were futile. The Holud Pakhi had moved to a leafy niche from where I could only obtain a very bad shot of the bird’s fancy yellow rear even when I tried my best. After a few minutes of capricious flitting about, it flew away.

I stood by the window with a broken heart and only a very bad shot.

“NO. This bird must be captured in all its glory.” I thought and waited by the window without really realizing how long the wait would end up being.

Project Holud Pakhi had commenced.

About 30 minutes passed before my aunt started wondering what had made a jittery Gremlin (me) stay motionlessly at one place for so long. I explained the situation to her and she parted with some important inside information on the subject. Apparently the bird only graces the mango tree by its presence..and very rarely is the Musanda plant deemed fit for her highness’s fancy golden derriere. (Judging the bird by its whimsical trots and flamboyant flourishes I took the liberty to assume that it must be a female. Though male birds are more flamboyant in appearance, this one was rather distinguished in its demeanor.)

Time passed slowly and occasionally I’d hear the bird’s call which made me run upstairs for a better view. I caught a glimpse of the bird almost twice in about 8 times of running upstairs and downstairs, 40 to 50 odd minutes of being roasted in the hot mid day sun on the terrace….only to see it fly away in tremendous hurry..where to? ..maybe even the Sun God himself does not know.

Exhausted, I sat by the window with a couple of books and yet another cup of coffee, periodically scanning the mango tree and the Musanda plant.

Time so passed that the leaves and the sunlight started playing cruel mind games with me. Every moving leaf I hallucinated to be the prodigal bird’s blessed return. My ears stood up and my eyes narrowed at every bird’s call. My ability to think straight was fogged by sudden flashes of powdery sunlight slipping off polished mango leaves pretending to be the golden bird I longed for.

My uncle notices the sorry state and says “Miss call de pakhi ta ke….akta miss call de” (give the bird a miss call)…but I was numb to humor…impatience numbed hunger, numbed thirst..and gradually numbed enthusiasm.

Eventually, for the lack of any sign of the Holud Pakhi’s return,

Project Holud Pakhi transmogrified to Project Tuntuni Pakhi (Sunbird?)

..another painfully small and swift bird to capture. Before I’d pick up my camera to look through the view-finder, the little Sunbird would have long disappeared..yielding an exclamatory “osshobho kothakar!!” (Shameless thing!!) from my lips. 9 days of Kolkata and a Bangla influence already, I tell you

Project Bulbuli Pakhi (Bulbul) followed....

so did Project Chorui Pakhi (Sparrow)

Followed by Project Mayna Pakhi (Maynah),

Project Bok (Stork),

Project Machranga (Kingfisher),

Project Payra (Pegion),

Project Kathbirali (Squirrel),

Project Phoring (Dragonfly?)

…..ending with a miserable Project Kaak (Crow)..without a single visit from the Holud Pakhi.

I sighed….birds….they are like beautiful unfaithful lovers. They will wrap you up in a wondrous rapture, leave you starry eyed with a thousand sweet promises in their transient sweet songs..perch upon the nimble tendril and flaunt their colours, preen themselves and make you wish for wings just so you could be a part of that dreamland they belong to…wish for that freedom ..wish for a complete surrender to a wanderlust only birds are capable of comprehending.

I picked up the numerous coffee cups and strewn unread books for the Sun began to bid adieu. Promising myself to sleep early for an early commencement of the next day’s Project Holud Pakhi , I left the window humming-

Sei je Holud Pakhi

Boshe Jamrul gaacher daale

Korto dakadaki

Amar shaishaber shokale

Ekdin galo ure

Janina kon sudure

Phirbe na she ki phirbe na?

Phirbe na aar kono din?

A rough translation of the song-

( That yellow bird, sitting on the Jamrul tree, used to sing in my childhood. One day it flew away, I don’t know to which faraway place, Will it not return? Will it not return ever?)

This is the link to the song on youtube if you wish to listen-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEqXe8LNYbc&feature=related

Some more photographs that I took can be viewed here -

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1649355669719.2095199.1111773413

The Algorithm of 'Learning'

The mind is a beautiful entity. It perceives music, perceives art, perceives the abstract in a way that perception itself becomes a link between two individuals.The mind is such an entity which enables one to perceive ‘perception’ of another individual long before it has been taught words, taught grammar.The mind does not require words,many times to communicate to another mind. What an elegantly designed system it must be, where an entity is capable of such a thing. Not only that, a mind is capable of ‘reasoning’, ‘judgment’ and also ‘learning’.

What is ‘learning’? Is it the ability to ‘retain’ an experience/information and utilize it strategically in future? Is it the ability to ‘mimic’ another entity, which has been perceived by the mind as ideal? Or is it the ability to combine reasoning and judgment with experience, information and mimicry? In that case, can reasoning and judgment be ‘learnt’?

Most people say, at least I have heard them say..”yes, reasoning & judgment can be learnt…with experience”. The more you practice, more you use your logic, sharper is your ability to reason and better is your judgment, they say. But is that not simply the ability of retention of ‘data’ strategically reused at a different time ..again?

Which brings me to the next question- What exactly is judgment and what exactly is reasoning?

Judgment is like the binary system of 1s and 0s…of good and bad. Classifying an experience, an information, a person as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, just like data being in terms of 1s and 0s is judgment. Just like a certain combination of 1s and 0s gives the final image on the screen, (however oversimplified this may sound) a certain combination of ‘good’s and ‘bad’s enables the mind to reach to the final image of the experience, information or person it is judging. While reasoning is the precursor of judgment (for most humans). ‘Why’ a certain experience/information/person is 1 or 0, ..good or bad.

So considering 1=good and 0=bad, and judgment & reasoning consisting of these two variables, when one says ‘neither good nor bad’ it implies equal numbers of 1s and 0s. ‘Very good’ means relatively higher number of 1s than 0s. ‘Excellent’ being considerably higher numbers of 1s than 0s. Similarly for cases ‘bad’, ‘very bad’ and ‘abysmal’ which brings us to the convenient end result of a rather complex process of ‘judgment’.

Result Process

Neither good nor bad n (0) = n (1)

Good n (0) less than n(1)

Very Good n (0) much less than n(1)

Excellent n (0) much much less than n(1)

Bad n (0) > n (1)

Very Bad n (0) >> n (1)

Abysmal n (0) >>>n (1)

Now, why does a mind classify something as 0 or 1? What is this reasoning?

For me (& I’ve noticed for most people as well), a certain experience/information/person is ‘good’ because it brings ‘happiness’ and a certain experience/information/person is ‘bad’ because it brings us sadness.

Take an example. “Is smoking good or bad?”

Smoking may be ‘bad’ for A and ‘good’ for B.

This is how A’s mind works-

Judgment 1) Smoking causes cancer -> cancer causes pain->pain makes me unhappy. => Smoking =Bad =0

Judgment 2) Smoking causes pollution->pollution causes asthma->asthma makes me unhappy=> Smoking=Bad=0

Judgment 3) I like B. B likes to smoke-> B gets cancer-> B dies-> B’s death makes me unhappy=> Smoking=Bad=0

Judgment4) Smoking looks cool->being cool makes me happy=> Smoking =Good=1

Judgment 5) I have never smoked-> I don’t know what smoking feels like=> Smoking is neither good nor bad.

Here n (0)=3 while n(1)=1 hence n(0)>n(1) which implies final judgment – Smoking =Bad.

While in B’s case the mind might work like this-

Judgment 1) Smoking is cool-> Being cool makes me happy=> Smoking =Good=1

Judgment 2) Smoking feels great->feeling great makes me happy=>Smoking =Good=1

Judgment 3) Smoking causes cancer ->I don’t really care about cancer=> Smoking is neither good nor bad.

Judgment 4) Smoking causes pollution -> I don’t really care about pollution=>Smoking is neither good nor bad.

Judgment 5) I think A is a royal pain in the ass-> I smoke-> I die of cancer-> A wont bug me anymore-> When A does not bug me it makes me happy=> Smoking =Good=1.

Here n (0)=0 while n(1)=3 hence n(0) is less than n(1) which implies final judgment- Smoking =Good.

Now, if you don’t smoke your mind has automatically ‘judged’, using a similar algorithm that A is a nice person=> A=Good while B is an idiot => B=Bad..or if you smoke..your mind may 'judge' otherwise. Why did your mind do that? Even when hypothetical people A & B have nothing to do with your happiness directly. Mind is capable of ‘learning’ to judge & reason from other’s experience/information just because mind statistically foresees what will make us happy or unhappy if we experienced something similar. Not only that, this ‘learning’ is intrinsically biased. Mind relates better automatically to another mind with similar judgment. So if you smoke, you may be relatively happier around other people who smoke. Birds of a feather…..

So it all boils down to ‘happiness’ and ‘unhappiness’ which we call the ‘state of mind’. The ‘state of mind’ after all the algorithms of ‘reason’, ‘judgment’ and ‘learning’ have taken place. It is that what appears on the tiny screen of a calculator when one presses “=” button after a tedious series of calculations. What you’ll do with that figure on the screen, delves into a completely different realm of further ramifications of the 0s & the 1s.

So if ‘good’ (1) or ‘bad’ (0) is happiness based, if reasoning and judgment is “good-bad” based, if learning is reasoning based, the phrase “learning is a lifetime process” must imply that learning is a mere accumulations of these 1s and 0s. So is “learning” a mere accumulations of these 1s and 0s?..and forming a sort of “look-up-table” for all the combinations of 0s and 1s and striving to reproduce instances with combinations where n(0)<<n(1) and striving to avoid instances with combinations where n(0)>n(1)…is this ‘learning’? If it is, then is learning an effort to predict happiness?

We go on “learning” and accumulating these 0s and 1s, these ‘good’s and ‘bad’s , constructing a good-bad binary empire in our minds on a flimsy base material of happiness.

Turns out, we humans are very bad at describing what had made us happy in past, let alone predicting what makes us happy in future.*

So when A makes you happy when you are 10 years old, your 10 year old mind had made a good-bad combination entry in your mind’s look-up-table where n(1)>n(0).

Even after 20 years when A is mentioned in a conversation, considering you have not seen A since you were 10 years old, your mind will go back to the entry dated 9/1/2001, drive: People, Folder: Friends, Object: A and show you the entry A=Good, even if on 9/1/2031 A smokes/gambles/drinks, which according to you may be bad. What will you do then? You will re-enter a new combination of 0s and 1s and modify the entry dated 9/1/2001 drive: People, Folder: Friends, Object: A.

So is this learning? Accepting the fact that we are bad at predicting ‘happiness’ and be willing to change data in our look-up-table?

That brings us to the next level of perception of mind- “Forgiveness” or “selectively ignoring or preventing change in judgment in spite of change in data in look-up-table”.

Now A may drink/gamble/smoke for which different minds will assign different magnitudes of 0s or ‘bad’s i.e for different minds, A’s actions will be judged on a scale of n (0) ranging from a value less than n(1) to a value more than n(1).

Ideally if A’s drinking habits make you unhappy=> n(0)>n (1) => A =Bad

But if A’s drinking habits make you unhappy=>still n(0) less than n(1)=>A=Good.This is an anomaly. An anomaly called ‘Forgiveness’ (sometimes also ‘stupidity’ but most of the time ‘forgiveness’)

Now you may say that A has n(0) less than n(1) for most cases in your look-up-table, hence A should be given a chance to give up drinking habits. This is a second anomaly called ‘Hope’ where mind accepts the first anomaly i.e if A’s drinking habits make you unhappy=> still n(0)less than n(1) => A=Good and projects this into the future making a (statistically unsound) temporary alteration in its look-up-table till A either finally gives up drinking (in which case the data entry will be correct- you are happy-> A=Good & temporary alteration of data has been made permanent) or A continues drinking (in which case the data entry will be incorrect- you are unhappy=> A=Bad drunkard nincompoop)

So is this learning? The ability to take into considerations such anomalies and be willing to alter the state of mind itself as a result of a set of data unlike the previous cases where a set of data resulted from the state of mind.

What causes a state of mind?

How many more ramifications are there to the process of learning? The process that makes us who we are today? What determines its efficiency and what are its limitations.

The perception of perception of mind itself is such a mind-boggling mystery. What finesse of skills must that one have whoever designed this evolving mind of ours.

*This particular line has been borrowed from the talk given by Matthew Taylor. For further referencehttp://www.youtube.com/user/theRSAorg#p/u/1/AC7ANGMy0yo

also the last drawing has been taken from

http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/archives/2004/Aug/

which is quite funny.